The Football Ferns were beaten 2-0 by Argentina in their international friendly in Hamilton.
Hannah Wilkinson had a shot on goal. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
New Zealand, who were beaten 5-0 by Portugal last Friday, play Argentina for a second time in Auckland on Thursday.
While the performance was a marked improvement on Friday night's outing against Portugal, the Football Ferns were still unable to find the back of the net against the South Americans at Waikato Stadium.
Head coach Jitka Klimková made five changes from Friday night's starting XI, and had her side line up in the familiar 4-4-2 formation.
Grace Neville started in her second appearance for Aotearoa as she deputised for the injured CJ Bott, Liz Anton came on in place of Ali Riley, Meikayla Moore, Grace Jale and Daisy Cleverley all started in place of Kate Taylor, Claudia Bunge and Malia Steinmetz, and Liv Chance wore the armband in her hometown in the place of the injured captain.
The first shot on target, from Hannah Wilkinson in the 13th minute, after some dogged approach play from Katie Bowen, saw her find her Melbourne City teammate, however, Wilkinson's outside of the boot shot went straight at Argentinian goalkeeper Vanina Correa.
Argentina opened the scoring minutes later, after the Ferns failed to progress a goal kick from the penalty area. Bowen's attempt to shield the ball from Mariana Larroquette unfortunately resulted in the ball ricocheting off the Club Leon forward to open the scoring.
The Ferns came close to bringing the game back on level terms by the end of the half, with their best chance coming in the 33rd minute after Betsy Hassett hustled down the left win, nutmegging two Argentinian players to get to the byline and find Liv Chance, only for the captain to fire at Correa and Grace Jale's shot off the rebound subsequently rebounding off Chance.
The Ferns thought they'd equalised in the 56th minute, when Grace Jale's raking ball found Chance just inside the penalty area, and the Hamiltonian buried her shot past Correa. As with Friday night, the goal was chalked off for offside after a VAR review, although this one was a much tighter call.
The hour mark saw Football Fern number 203 make her debut in Hamilton's Michaela Foster, completing a whirlwind year in which she's made both her professional and international debuts.
Argentina doubled their lead at the 90 minute mark, as Aldama Cometti diverted a header from a corner to secure the South Americans' win.
Chance came the closest to securing a consolation goal for the Ferns, flashing a shot from outside the box just past Correa's far post shortly after.
After the match Klimková and defender Meikayla Moore spoke to media, reflecting on an improved performance from two days ago, but admitting it still wasn't enough to win games.
"I am glad that we improved our game and we had more positives moments in the game, but that's not good enough to win those games, and we should be definitely winning those games," says Klimková.
"We will review the game and we will find the way what we need to change for the game number three."
"I reiterate what Jitka said," added Moore.
"We improved, but again, it's not good enough. We are here to win matches. We're here to play to win matches, and we didn't do that today, but we can take the positives. And we have one more game to get those three points.
"[After Friday] we did a lot of talking. We almost stripped it beyond tactics and went to what we can control the basics, and that's what we focused on. We can control the controllables essentially. You guys all see what's out there, but there's so much more stuff that we're doing behind the scenes. And again, we didn't get the result that we wanted to today, but we can take the positive momentum and the shift from the game previously till today."
The Ferns now travel to Auckland to take on Argentina for a second time on Thursday at North Harbour Stadium.
